


The Plan

by PJO_Connoisseur



Series: The Third War [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, I Haven't Read The Trials of Apollo, Introspection, Sacrifice, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25938136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PJO_Connoisseur/pseuds/PJO_Connoisseur
Summary: At the end of Annabeth and Percy's third war, Annabeth has one last-ditch plan to win. But no matter what they do, only one of them is making it out alive.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Series: The Third War [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882504
Kudos: 31





	The Plan

**Author's Note:**

> Not having ready Trials of Apollo, this takes place at the end of a contextually ambiguous third war a few years after Blood of Olympus.

Annabeth and Percy are crouching behind Zeus’ Fist, panting and unable to get enough air. Annabeth’s entire body is screaming at her, her legs from running, her arms fending off every monster they met on their way to this spot. Her dagger was lost in the chaos, leaving her mind as her only remaining weapon, as always the most powerful thing she wields. An explosion sounds in the distance, bits of rock and tree making it all the way to their hiding place, where Annabeth is scrambling to form a plan.

“Annabeth,” Percy says, urgency in both his tone and the trembling of his body, half nerves and half battle reflexes. He’s itching to do something,  _ anything_. They didn’t expect the battle to end up here, at camp. For Percy the Battle of Manhattan was a fight on home turf; for Annabeth, even after outside schooling and a semi-repaired relationship with her father, Camp Half-Blood is home, the place she needs to protect. Even after defending it in the past, this is different. Already it’s being torn to shreds around them and will soon perish, not that it matters, because if they don’t win soon, there will be no survivors.

“I’m thinking,” Annabeth says. Despite intelligence and strategy being her main abilities, she rarely has to say such a thing, normally having already formed a plan before anyone has a chance to ask for one. But now more than ever every second counts, and her mind is failing her. There’s too much happening at once, too many details to consider, too much at stake. The rest of her cabin is already dead, along with most of both Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter. If anyone is going to fix this, that person is going to be her, but she can’t think straight.

Because every path leads to the same conclusion, and she won’t allow it. Not after all these years. Not after everything they’ve been through.

“ _Annabeth_ ,” Percy repeats, overflowing with a desperation and strain she’s never heard from him.

“I can’t stop thinking about the Battle of the Labyrinth,” she says. “Or that year, I mean. You, me, and the telkhines.”

“Not quite a bronze cauldron,” Percy says, leaning against Zeus’ Fist.

“I thought you were going to die,” she says.

“I remember,” he says, fondness underneath the dirt and blood crusting his face.

The magnitude of their transformation since that time rips through Annabeth. Percy’s eyes, once bright and reckless, have become dull with the weight of their trauma. The left sleeve of his shirt hangs limp in empty space where his arm used to be. Exhaustion is no longer a state of the body but a state of being, an ingrained part of their existence. They are twenty and on their third war. Their lives never should have been like this, they’re old enough to be painfully aware of that fact, and the resentment has long since set in.

Annabeth lays out the only plan she has, the only one that won’t at long last leave humanity extinguished at the hands of the gods. When she finishes, she says, “Percy,” his name alone enough to break her voice. He nods, too tired to be fazed, already knowing what she’s about to say. She says it anyway, because until she does, she won’t accept it as real. “One of us has to die.”

“It’s going to be me,” he says. A statement. A decision.

Annabeth wants to argue. Winning arguments isn’t much of a power, but it came with her territory of expertise. She can debate her way to victory for a side she doesn’t even believe in. But this is the one fight she knows she can’t win.

From the very first time Annabeth met Percy, his fatal flaw was clear. He has the kind of loyalty where he’ll follow friends and family off a cliff if they asked him to, a loyalty as reckless as the rest of him. That trait has always been the most dangerous thing about him as well as the most defining. That is why she knows she can’t win this fight. Because his surviving friends, girlfriend, and family are at risk, and even in the case of infinite universes there are none in which Percy Jackson chooses himself over them.

“I know,” she says, and the tears are halfway down her face before she registers them forming. This isn’t what she wants Percy’s last memory of her to be, in complete physical and emotional disarray, straining to hold herself together because she’s part of this plan even if she makes it out alive.

“It’s ironic, in a way,” she says. “My fatal flaw sent us plummeting to Tartarus, and you paid for that by choosing to come with me. And now it’s my turn to pay for yours, and even now I’m not ready.” Her breath comes out in ragged pants, gasping for air, choking on it, overwhelmed with what they’re doing. The choice they’re making. “How could any god of justice exist to let this happen?” Her words slice through the air and Percy alike, sharp and bitter and uncontrollable. “ _After everything we’ve been through_?”

Percy drops Riptide to pull her into his arm, face buried in her hair.

She screams into his chest, raw anguish sucking all the oxygen out of the air. This isn’t the life they were supposed to have. They’re supposed to have New Rome and a house they’ll build and kids they’ll watch grow up and two rocking chairs on their front porch where they’ll drink tea in the mornings while they reach old age together. They’re supposed to be  _ together_. They earned that if nothing else. That future was always the light at the end of the tunnel, and now the tunnel is closing, and Annabeth is being trapped inside.

Annabeth’s body is shaking so hard for a second she thinks an earthquake is erupting beneath them. Percy’s nails dig into her back as he withholds his own emotion, because although Percy is the one knowingly heading to his grave, they both knew he is the one with the easy way out.

Percy is the one taking the course of action he wants. He's the one giving in to his fatal flaw. He’s the one headed to Elysium, where time means nothing and he will be reunited with Annabeth before he can miss her.

Annabeth is the one who has to keep going. She has to make sure their plan succeeds. She has to clean up the carnage and rebuild from the ashes. She has to live as long and meaningful of a life as she can with all her siblings and half of her closest friends already dead and no guarantee for the lives of the others.

Every hero’s death is a tragedy they mourn, because living means mourning. It means suffering and uncertainty. Living is always easier than dying, and right now, she and Percy are both painfully aware of that.

His hand lingers on Annabeth’s arm as she pulls back from the embrace that wasn’t enough but never could have been enough.

“You know, I always kind of knew I’d die like this,” Percy says with a forced half smile, a joke that wasn’t really a joke. “For my friends and family, for you.” He clears his throat. “For my fatal flaw. It got a bit literal there.”

Annabeth laughs, because she doesn’t know what else to do, because her body is operating on autopilot, mind too distressed to make any decisions.

Percy caressed Annabeth’s cheek, and she could see in his eyes that it was time to say goodbye. They’d already taken up too much time, likely cost more lives, but just this once Annabeth didn’t have it in her to care.

“‘Consider me warned,’” Annabeth says, quoting Percy from years ago, at their reunion following his memory wipe and six-month absence. “You weren’t supposed to leave me again.”

“I’m sorry,” Percy says, thumb stroking her cheek, touching more sweat and grime than skin. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Annabeth needs to calm down, but sobs wrack her body, robbing it of energy, and as hard as she tries, she can’t stop.

“Hey now,” Percy says, voice soft as he wipes her tears. When she manages to look at him, his lips are quivering with the effort of holding on a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “This isn’t the end, so I’m not going to say goodbye. One day we’ll be in Elysium together and have each other forever like we deserve. I promise I’ll wait for you.”

His words do little to deter the ravaging impact of Annabeth’s oncoming grief, but she knows he’s right and that will have to be enough for now. She takes a deep breath and nods before pulling him into her.

Their last kiss is the same as their first: in hiding, in danger, in fear for Percy’s life. They are surrounded by destruction and death but all she smells is salt and the ocean, all she feels is sweaty hair and a firm hand, all she tastes is blood from his cut lip and the finality of this moment. They pour all the emotion they can into this kiss because soon it will be Percy’s last memory of Annabeth and all Annabeth has left of Percy until Annabeth dies and meets him again.

Percy is the one with the restraint to break the kiss, pressing his forehead to Annabeth’s with closed eyes, until he pulls away and turns to go. 

Annabeth catches his wrist on reflex, her throat closing, and chokes out, “I love you, Seaweed Brain.”

Percy smiles, this time genuine, taking years off his war-hardened features. For a second she recognizes him as an earlier version of himself. Someone who’s seen a little less carnage, killed a few less monsters, lost a few less friends. Someone who doesn’t exist anymore and will never exist again. She wonders if the current version of her will be the happier version of her a few years down the line and shivers at the thought.

But right now he smiles and he means it, and says, “I love you too, Wise Girl.” And he’s so calm and confident when he says it that his promise settles into her bones, and all at once she knows with absolute certainty he meant it.

Holding onto that promise like her last lifeline, she is peaceful as she offers him one last, real smile.

Percy grabs his sword, and Annabeth does not stop him.

Percy rises to his feet, and Annabeth does not stop him.

Percy leaves, and Annabeth does not stop him.

Instead her timeless bubble with Percy pops, and she launches into her end of the plan, because there are still other people to save.

Because the plan is Annabeth’s, it succeeds.

Because the plan succeeds, the next time she sees Percy, he is dead.

Annabeth does not know if she’ll die tomorrow, in a few years, or at eighty years old like a mortal woman. She knows only where she’ll go when she does and that Percy will be waiting.

They will always find each other.


End file.
